Are YOU proud to be an Asian American?

Throughout this Asian American Culture class, I have learned how to gain a deeper, more meaningful understanding about my culture and ethnicity. At the beginning of the class, I had an idea of what my Chinese American heritage was about from my family, visits to Chinatown, and the media. Now I know even more about my roots and culture today because this class has introduced me so many other aspects and components of Asian American culture. When thinking about Asian Americans, I sometimes ponder about being an Asian American myself. I embrace the values that are unique to my culture and learn the traditions that date back centuries to China. However, I ask myself, am I proud to be an Asian American? There are arguments to both sides of this issue. I am sure that this question has hit every single Asian American at least once. We Asian Americans live in a very diverse society in San Francisco and we often interact with people from other races and ethnicities. In some situations and events, we feel like we want to be of another race instead of being Asian Americans. We cannot change our identity and roots though. Our identity and roots are in our blood and will always be a part of us.

I grew up in San Francisco where I was always surrounded by a large Asian American presence. Wherever I went, whether or not it was school or the grocery store, I would find Asian Americans there. Rarely did I ever feel left out because I was the only Asian American. My high school is about 70% Asian (DANG yep, it is really that ASIAN). For the entire four years that I spent there, I have always spent time with Asian Americans. My classes were full of Asian Americans, a majority of my friends were Asian Americans, and I did volunteer work for my school and participated in clubs involving Asian Americans. Basically the point is that my high school was an Asian American domination. Not to say that it is bad or anything, but I never got exposed to other races and ethnicities. Probably the only outlet that I got to have into another culture was Spanish culture during my three years of Spanish class. In that class I got to learn how to speak another language and learn about its culture. Other than that, the other courses I took during high school did not involve learning about other cultures. So when I get into a situation where I am with people of a different race and ethnicity, I admit, I sometimes get slightly nervous and a bit edgy because I am afraid that I might make a fool of myself by doing something embarrassing of Asian American culture. Sounds weird, but it is true. That is how I feel.

So one day I was talking to my Russian friend while walking down the hill from school and we both saw an elderly Asian man spit (rather loudly and forcefully) onto the sidewalk. As an Asian American, I found that normal because I have seen numerous Asians do that countless times but my friend was taken aback by what she saw. At that very moment I felt like I did not want to be Asian. What the old man did was very embarrassing and pretty disgusting and I felt bad that my friend had to see that. From what she saw, she probably asserted that Asian Americans are bad mannered because they do such inappropriate acts (she might not assert that but most likely she probably did). I was ashamed that Asian Americans did that and wish they did not. Inappropriate acts like those degrade the status of Asian Americans in society.

You may wonder if I am proud to be an Asian American. Even though I have gone through many experiences where I felt like Asian Americans have bad manners and could do way better to improve their self-image, I am proud to be an Asian American. Why? Well, I appreciate who I am and what my roots are. No matter how much bad representation Asian Americans get, I am still thankful for the culture, values, and beliefs that I have learned and embraced throughout my entire life thus far. I like Chinese food, Chinese New Year, moon cakes, dim sum, buns, etc. I like a majority of the stuff that makes up Chinese culture, the minor, bad stuff that I do not like includes bad manners and uncleanliness. The good outweighs the bad, so being an Asian American is something that I will always be proud of, despite the bad aspects that appear within Chinese culture.